


A Safer Option

by TAFKAB



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Alien Sex, And I was like DO I HAVE A STORY ALMOST READY FOR YOU, Angst, Anonymous Sex, BECAUSE IF YOU EVER WANTED TO HEAR BONES SWEAR, Dubious Morality, Dubiously Consensual Blow Jobs, Frenemies, Glory Hole, M/M, Medical Jargon, Mistaken Identity, Oral Sex, PWP-ish, Profanity, Recreational Drug Use, Someone on Tumblr asked for Bones getting to say "fuck", THIS IS YOUR STORY, Vaping, frenemies to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-13 05:48:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7964830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TAFKAB/pseuds/TAFKAB
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes being a doctor is a curse, especially when you realize Leonard McCoy can recognize just about every single set of junk on the Enterprise at first sight, without ever having had the fun of getting to know them personally.  </p><p>On shore leave one evening, visiting a gay bar looking for some no-strings-attached anonymous sex, McCoy gets the shock of his life when he recognizes the particularly distinctive set of genitalia that comes poking through the glory hole.  </p><p>He can't believe this can be happening; it's completely impossible.  But he's sure as hell not about to let somebody else get his filthy hands and mouth on that gorgeous cock....</p><p> </p><p>This story is very deliberately ambiguous as to whether it's set in AOS or TOS.  It feels a little more AOS-y to me, but hey.  Read it however you want.  ^_^</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

McCoy had seen plenty of dicks in his day-- as exotic and varied in size, shape, color, and design as the beings they were attached to. But the selection at this club had to take the cake. The glory holes featured nearly two dozen species-- and that was just the ones he could identify. Just as many were on this side of the wall, coming and going-- literally.

“Better’n Risa,” he muttered, appreciative. So it wasn’t as safe-- it was a trade-off between boring and sexy, and this club was winning hands down. Besides, he had a hypo hidden in his jacket that would knock down a Gorn in heat. 

He hung back by the wall, taking a hit off the personal vaporizer in his breast pocket. It had a mild stimulant in it, nothing as damaging or addictive as nicotine, but hey, he was on shore leave. He was going to live a little. None of the communal ones for him; fuck only knew what you’d catch doing that. There were plenty available, emitting a noxious brew of exotic scents, and plenty of exotic drugs, too, for every possible physiology, available over the counter, no prescription necessary.

He eyed the ever-changing lineup of genitals, waiting for a set that suited his fancy. Not that Leonard McCoy was a prejudiced man-- well, except for when it came to Spock; a man had to have one xenophobic exception to prove how tolerant he was the rest of the time-- but he’d rather not get too adventurous with his selection. After all, there were species represented on that wall whose seminal emissions had such a high acid content they’d eat the enamel right off his human teeth, and then where would he be?

He whiled away the time taking hits off the vape and watching for his chance. You had to admire whoever designed this place. The holes in the wall were arranged at several different levels, but the majority were conveniently located at face level for access by a humanoid mouth. For those that weren’t, there were a selection of lightweight stepladders. 

He exhaled, politely directing the tingling, minty vapor upward into the cloud hovering under the ceiling, and was about to take another hit when something caught his eye.

 _Vulcan? I’ll be damned._ McCoy pushed away from the wall, pretty sure he was mistaken. The flashing lights in the ceiling shone in all the colors of the rainbow. _I’ve gotta be hallucinating._

He wasn’t. The closer he got, the more he could be sure: characteristic green cast to the flesh, consistent whenever the light strobed in something approaching the normal visual spectrum of the Terran sun. That was definitely a double ridge on the glans, half-hidden beneath loose folds of skin that would accommodate it when it swelled. Jesus. What were the odds he’d find a Vulcan here? How many Vulcans could there be on this space station, anyway? 

He took a step forward, then another, fascinated almost against his will-- and then McCoy’s eyes popped. The cock was still soft, but he could see quite clearly: it had only a single slit in the tip; it didn’t have both an emergent urethra and vas deferens. And that, that my friends, was an anatomical oddity you only found in male Vulcan-human hybrids, and the odds against there being two of _those_ on this station, or in fact anywhere in the galaxy, were infinity to one against.

He knew this cock. He’d treated this cock; he was this cock’s primary care physician, and thus he was one of maybe-- _maybe_ three or four people in the galaxy, at most, who’d recognize it on sight. This cock belonged to _Spock._

He glanced side to side, suddenly beset by panic, and took a step back. _Holy fuck._ He grabbed the vape out of his pocket, glared at the label, and licked the emitter, suspicious-- but no, it tasted right. Maybe there was a hallucinogen in the air. Had somebody slipped him a roofie? 

The cock waited patiently, still soft. 

_Damn it, Spock, not even a sheath?_ Of course, Spock wasn’t worried about infecting anyone. McCoy had medical scans on his tricorder from just two days ago, so he was also the only person in the universe other than the owner who could be almost 100% confident this cock was clean. Unless Spock had been fucking everything he could get his hands on while aboard the Enterprise since his physical, or maybe during the roughly thirty-seven minutes since his last bridge shift would have ended and he was cleared for beam-down.

McCoy was prepared to wager against those two eventualities. The odds were definitely stacked in his favor.

He scowled bloody murder at a Ferengi who looked like he might be angling in to get a mouthful of Vulcan, and the little alien scampered along toward the next hopeful.

 _Christ, those fucking sharp teeth!_ If Spock wanted to stay healthy, this wasn’t the way to do it. But when you had the itch, you had to scratch it somehow. Maybe masturbation was somehow considered more illogical than anonymous club sex. McCoy shook his head with disbelief, his mind racing. 

Oh, this was insane. Both of them. But he couldn’t let just anybody get at Spock, not when there was a safer option. 

They were both insane for being here. McCoy was probably more insane, actually, for even considering what he was about to do. But…. he had the itch himself, only from the other side. 

It was convenient. It was safe for them both.

Hell, it was even _fucking logical._

He started to step forward in spite of his better judgment, then panicked again-- he couldn’t do it, _couldn’t!_ Spock was a fucking touch telepath and McCoy didn’t even have the bad defense of not knowing it was Spock on the other side of the wall. No deniability at _all_. Unless--

He shot a desperate, calculating stare at the window in the wall where drugs were passed through a recessed slot in exchange for credits. There was a substance Cardassians used as an intoxicant; one of the odder benzodiazepines. He’d read about it just a few weeks ago in one of his journals. It made any Cardassian who took it trip balls, but didn’t do much for humans except calm them down if they had anxiety disorders. McCoy had been a lot more interested in the side effects. For one thing, it blocked psi ability completely for several days as it worked its way out of the human’s system-- both sending and receiving. Trying to read somebody who was high on that stuff would be like trying to meld with a brick wall. 

It was a long shot. There probably wasn’t a Cardassian this side of Bajor. But….

He gave the cock a final frantic look, scowled to either side to warn away any other over-enthusiastic patrons, and hurried to the window, pulling out a credit chip. 

“Twenty micrograms of Cardassian Snoxx.” He kept his voice down as he scanned the chip and accepted the resulting pills, eyeing them suspiciously. Incredibly, his tricorder said they were what he’d asked for, without any deleterious additives. He dry-swallowed them hastily and turned back around.

Someone was just settling in, and he cursed silently to himself, hurrying over before the man could get started. Thank god, a Talaxian. They were usually easy to intimidate. He loomed over the guy, jerking his thumb to one side, and put on his best scowl. He didn’t dare utter a peep, but luckily the fellow blanched at the wild look in his eyes and scuttled away.

That left him and the cock, and Spock on the other side of the wall, probably getting pretty damn impatient right about now. And he was going to have to stay that way for at least three minutes more, because that’s how long it would take McCoy to metabolize enough of the drug to start touching him.

McCoy flailed for a second, frantic, before sudden inspiration struck. Well… it was supposed to be a blow-job, wasn’t it?

He leaned in and blew softly, caressing the cock with a stream of warm, damp air. It twitched in response, exquisitely sensitive. He took a hit off the vape and exhaled the steam, trickling it over Spock’s cock. It stirred as the menthol activated Spock’s TRPM8 and the ion channels opened, obedient, giving him what was probably one hell of a tingle since Vulcans were a lot more sensitive to mint than humans. McCoy marveled to himself, amazed, as the cock flushed darker green, lifting and filling, nearly tapping his nose. He was turning Spock on, he was _turning Spock on_ , holy shit. It could actually be done. 

His own cock stirred, sympathetic arousal beginning to burn at the base of his belly, and he had to shift his legs to accommodate it, dropping one hand to cup himself through the fabric of his jeans. 

He still wasn’t dizzy, so he gave it another long, slow breath, getting as close as he could without touching, trailing the white vapor up from the base to the tip, lingering at the ridges beneath the glans-- there was a nerve bundle there; he ought to be sending shivers up and down Spock’s spine. And it would only get better; he was loading his mouth up with the chemicals from the vapor, so when he went down it would be an icy-hot shock to Spock’s system, guaranteed to give him a charge he wouldn’t soon forget.

The dizziness took its own sweet time; by the time his head was swimming adequately, Spock’s cock was fully engorged, and he could see a shine of moisture gathering at its tip. 

He brushed a tentative kiss there, then drew back, instinctively waiting for the universe to explode. 

Somehow it didn’t. 

McCoy hesitated, eyes drifting shut, and laid his palms flat on the wall. Good thing he’d had the benzodiazepine to keep him from panicking, or he’d be losing his shit right about now.

As it was he drifted forward, and this time he let his lips flower open against the tip just a little, getting his first taste of Spock. He tasted faintly salty and sweet, both at once, mouth-watering. God, Spock’s dick was a gorgeous thing, hefty on his tongue, hot-skinned and perfect, and he _loved_ sucking cock. 

He drew back, then leaned in again, and this time he lapped up along the slit, letting his tongue dip in. The cock quivered as Spock shifted, pushing it forward so firmly the hole bit into the soft flesh of his groin. The message was clear: quit fiddling around and _do it already._

McCoy obeyed. This time he let it in, sliding down. The double ridge was a challenge, stretching his lips, but the soft skin slid over it, lubricating it internally, giving him the slack he needed to make it over the hump on his first pass. 

He set to work in earnest-- he couldn’t hum like he usually would, but the menthol would make up for that, and he was expert with tongue and teeth, abilities he enhanced with his expert knowledge of Vulcan enervation. Damn the green blooded bastard, but McCoy was gonna give him the best fucking anonymous blowjob he’d ever get from a hole in the wall in a seedy club, or he’d know the reason why.

He worked it for all he was worth, humping the wall, his eyes closed. Fuck, but the hobgoblin tasted good. He swallowed, lips wet and stretched, and barely managed to stifle a moan. God, the man had inhuman endurance. It only made sense-- and the burn and stretch, the feeling of helplessness, was turning McCoy on, goddammit. He throbbed unbearably inside his jeans, painfully constricted, and pushed all the way down until Spock’s neat, crisp pubic hair brushed his lips, tickling. Even it was beautiful, dark and glossy like a crow’s feathers. McCoy swallowed, working his throat around the thick shaft, a trickle of wet escaping his lips and creeping down to his chin. 

He was used to hearing moans-- cries-- heavy breathing-- _something_ to give him a warning that his partner was about to come, but when Spock’s shaft stilled its shallow thrusting and pulsed in his throat, it took him completely off-guard. He drew back, wanting to taste the come on his tongue, but there wasn’t anything to taste. And then Spock was done.

Sensing Spock about to withdraw, McCoy hastily reached and caught the base of his cock in the circle of thumb and forefinger, considerately trying to milk him dry-- but apparently he hadn’t released any seed when he came. No wonder he didn’t use a sheath; this way he didn’t lose sensation and since he could apparently control ejaculation, he wouldn’t have to worry much about infecting or maybe even impregnating a partner.

Spock was drawing back, slow but inexorable, and McCoy couldn’t stop him. All he could do was press a few hasty kisses to the flushed, softening shaft, leaving a last lingering one on the tip before it pulled out of reach, telling it goodbye. Fuck, but he’d never have that gorgeous thing in his mouth again, and suddenly the loss struck him as an insupportable one. 

McCoy leaned against the wall and wiped his mouth roughly with his sleeve, trying to still the sudden trembling in his thighs. He’d been concentrating so hard on Spock’s pleasure he hadn’t come himself, but he was so hard he wouldn’t be able to walk; he’d have to waddle. Arousal had coiled firmly around his spine, merciless and sullen, and he knew it was the kind that wouldn’t pass easily; it’d fade slowly, reluctant, and leave him with a heavy, dull ache in his balls for hours.

He was going to go home, he knew it already-- home to his quarters on the Enterprise. He suddenly didn’t have the stomach for his seedy rented room, or for some anonymous fuck picked up on a dance floor somewhere.

No, he understood, his heart sinking with a strange, helpless flutter. He’d rather be alone with his right hand, replaying the smoking-hot memory of secretly bringing Spock off.

God help him.


	2. Chapter 2

McCoy had four whole days off before he had to return to sickbay and function like the adult he supposedly was (Jocelyn knew better, but Starfleet rather foolishly still believed in his maturity). 

The time was a torment; he kept finding himself half-hard, remembering the soft gleam of moisture at the tip of that cock, or the stretch and burn of his jaw as it filled his mouth. He couldn’t forget the welcoming salty-sweet flavor when he first took it in, and he couldn’t drown the memory in booze. 

He woke sucking his own wet fingers, rousing from fevered dreams of Spock’s strong hands on his head, guiding him, setting the pace, fucking his willing mouth unimpeded by the barrier of the wall. 

On the morning of the fifth day, he dragged himself in to work, slinking along an extremely inefficient route through low-rank crew corridors he knew Spock almost never walked through, and he set up shop on the biobed closest to his office in case he needed to beat a hasty retreat.

He more or less hid from Spock for a week and a half, and in the process he managed to get every bit of his back paperwork caught up. When the Vulcan made an appointment for his monthly physical, McCoy made a note of it and scheduled himself into the lab, then let M’Benga and Chapel handle him. 

Finally he gave up and prescribed himself some benzodiazepine for real; he’d run himself to the ragged edge of agitation, and it legitimately helped him calm down. After he got on the meds he felt less insecure, because even if he slipped up and let the memory slide into his thoughts at just the wrong moment, say if they brushed together going through a door, Spock wouldn’t overhear it. It felt pretty good to go up onto the bridge again every now and then to nag Jim, or enter the mess hall even after he spotted Spock already in there ahead of him, or stay to joke and laugh with Jim and Scotty after Spock came in, even after he brought his tray to join them. One day he actually managed to sass the first officer right and proper, catching him in a trap of logic he couldn’t get out of. That set the green-blooded bastard back on his heels.

His victory relaxed McCoy enough he almost thought things were back to normal-- almost, except for the dreams and for the way he’d sometimes get distracted and forget to glance away if he was looking at Spock and Spock wasn’t looking back. But any time Spock noticed, McCoy just sharpened his tongue and started an argument and really, that was exactly like normal, wasn’t it?

Exactly like normal. 

Too like normal.

Because now he was starting to wonder how long he’d subconsciously desired Spock, how long he’d been stealing glances without letting himself understand what he was doing.

He sat on his bunk and stared down at his rebellious lap-- his cock upright, his fist wrapped around it, his mind trying to summon the fading memory of Spock’s taste on his tongue, and knew he’d fucked up worse this time than he ever had before. He’d tasted forbidden fruit; he was like that woman in the stupid poem about the goblin market. 

How did it go? “For your sake I have braved the glen / And had to do with goblin merchant men.” That, and a whole lot of lurid stuff about sucking juices.

 _Hobgoblin market,_ he told himself gloomily, and let his head slump back to thump against the wall as his fist moved even faster.

He had to get laid, he decided after a while. Really laid. Hot, sweaty, vigorous, purely illogical sex with someone who could remind him just how fucking good it was to share a bed with somebody who was just as human, just as low-down nasty and perverse and outright dirty-minded _good_ in the sack as only another human could get. 

He thought about approaching Jim for a while, but Jim wasn’t the answer. That’d just lead to another kind of entanglement, and if he thought his workplace environment was fucked up now that he’d blown somebody from middle management, imagine how bad it could get if he started fucking the big boss. No, he’d leave that idea in the past, back in the squalid little dirty dormitory room where they’d abandoned it years ago. 

By the time they next put in for shore leave, McCoy was going stone crazy. He was going to find somebody to fuck if it killed him.

It never occurred to him that Spock might feel that way too-- not until he saw the first officer’s name on the shore leave roster, one space above his own. They were both set for the second phase of planetside leave, too-- Kirk and M’Benga had dibs on the first rota this time. 

McCoy scrubbed a hand over his face, feeling stubble just starting to come in. This was a planet, not a space station. There’d be a lot more territory for people to up and vanish into. He could vanish too; he could hang back just a little and Spock would never see him get on the transporter platform to beam down. 

Or he could follow the bastard; he could go down in the same group, then slink in behind and try to see where Spock went… see if he went for it again. Be there again, on the other side of the wall.

His mouth watered at the thought and he shut off the computer in haste, feeling painfully self-conscious.

Jesus Christ, that was a bad idea. ….How the hell was he going to manage it?

….Very, _very_ carefully.

He leaned back in his chair, put his feet up on the desk, glared at the stuffed lizard on his wall, and began to brainstorm. 

A lot of this depended on Spock. McCoy had a distinct advantage, knowing Spock so well. The evil elf was brilliant, sure, but he had an innate hatred of being wrong-- which meant that whenever he did something and it turned out well for him, he was likely to repeat the pattern over and over again. The bastard even ate breakfast at the same time every day-- same seat in the mess hall, same disgusting bowl of nutritious goop, same glass of vile electrolyte solution. It kept the green in his cheeks. 

He liked his chess games in the evening, too, always in Jim’s quarters or in Rec Room 2. If Jim wasn’t available, he’d go to Rec Room 2 with his lyre and play a while, or attend a concert. He would arise, regardless of the state of the festivities, and depart promptly at 21:00. Unless there was a crisis that demanded his attention, he was always in bed by 22:00, if the few comm calls McCoy had ever needed to make after that time were any indication. Up at 06:00. Then do it all again. Prompt, efficient routine.

He might be flattering himself, but he thought the expert bajowski he’d delivered made it likely Spock regarded his clubbing plan as a rousing success, which would increase the chances he’d try implementing it again. He’d find a relatively well-known club, one just shady enough to offer hard-core hookup services, well-reviewed by its online clientele, not the site of too many serious crimes, xeno-friendly. 

McCoy patched the Enterprise computer into the galactic cybernet, channeled his connection through an anonymity-protecting proxy, and went to work on his research. He’d narrow it down to the top choices within a reasonable journey of the planned beam-down and lodging site. Then even if he lost Spock along the way, he’d have a decent chance of second-guessing him.

Then, of course, he’d need a disguise. Thanks to the ship’s enthusiastic amateur theater group and a recent delivery of state of the art enviro-suit tech, which had arrived with one respirator unit damaged too badly to function, he had just the thing. All he needed was some clay and some paint.

*****

Beam-down went just fine. McCoy bickered deliberately with Spock on the platform to throw the bastard off his scent-- he’d expect McCoy to act shady and evasive if he were up to something, not to come right up to him and give him hell about his choice of leisure wear. Which was pretty damned hot, actually-- he’d worn his uniform blacks, leaving the blue science shirt off for once. The thermal fabric clung to him, sleek and loving, picking out the surprisingly luscious curve of his gluteus maximus and the swell of his taut pectorals and letting McCoy count his absolutely lickable abs. 

Shit. 

McCoy shouldered his heavy overnight bag. He had on his own usual jeans and leather jacket over a loose button-up with an open collar; they were nondescript and easily covered.

Once they beamed down, he strolled lazily after Spock until he saw him climb onto a public transport train; then he hastened onto it too, two cars back, and hauled the stuff out of his bag. He had an ankle long trench and six-inch platform boots, a hideous auburn wig and a respirator helmet, nonfunctional, that he’d adapted carefully with bits of sculpting clay, then painted and artificially weathered; it’d look like a custom mod respirator for an exotic species that couldn’t handle the local atmosphere, not a standard Starfleet spacewalk array.

When he was dressed he turned the bag inside out, converting it to a smaller hand-held model, and wandered up into the next car, just close enough to keep an eye on Spock without getting noticed. 

The bug eyes of his mask were polarized, hiding his face, and the ventilator gave him an alarming proboscis that reminded him of a plague doctor from way back in Earth history, but the mask provided a good view, and he was able to disembark at the same station Spock did, checking his handheld for confirmation of the current vector.

Yeah. Spock was probably headed to The Incubus, one of McCoy’s own top three picks. 

Spock moved efficiently through the crowd, walking considerably faster than McCoy could in his awkward platforms. It helped Spock that people instinctively gave way before a Vulcan; nobody wanted to be on the receiving end of an accidental mind-reading from a member of a species so goddamned perfect and intellectually superior. 

Least of all McCoy, who was so full of adrenaline he couldn’t even feel guilty, not with the thrill of the chase on him.

He fell back a little, but pushed on as hard as he dared, risking the safety of his ankles in the ludicrous boots. There was a line to get in-- a longer line for the dance club than the sex club level, and Spock was so preoccupied with being discreet he went for the safe choice. McCoy hoped he would work his way downstairs later. 

McCoy chose the sex line for himself and went on down, hoping Spock would stick to his previous pattern and not pick somebody up off the dance floor.

He had an agonizing wait, and he was so nervous he went for his vape again-- he’d deliberately gone with a different flavor tonight, one with the faintest hint of capsicum, carefully calculated to suit both his physiology and Spock’s delicate skin so this time his mouth would feel delightfully warm. He was up to date on his psi-suppressant, too-- though it had the odd consequence that he wasn’t able to touch Spock aboard the Enterprise unless he had gloves on. 

Funny how he’d never actually realized before how often he touched Spock-- even just a casual brush in passing. He kept having to make sure he didn’t touch Spock’s skin when they brushed together, so Spock wouldn’t either notice he’d stopped touching him _or_ observe he was on a psi-suppressant. Fuck. How long had this attraction been going on, and his damned stupid brain never bothered to let him in on the secret?!

He stressed so hard over his train of thought he almost missed it when Spock appeared, but he jerked himself alert and surged forward awkwardly, nearly breaking a leg in the fucking boots. 

He paused in front of the wall, trying to catch his breath and grab back some composure. He felt badly rattled. He could picture Spock standing genteelly on the other side, probably with his hands clasped at the small of his back, that sleek black outfit hugging him like somebody painted it on, the narcotic smoke that was an inevitable fixture in places like this eddying around his head while he pointedly remained stone cold sober.

McCoy drew a deep breath. He already had a plan.

He started with kisses, worshipping the beautiful cock like it deserved. He took his time spreading nuzzles and licks up the bottom, nibbling slowly along the sides. He delayed until he was trembling with lust before he touched his tongue to the crown, slipping beneath the loose skin for that elusive sugar-salt flavor he remembered. 

He imagined Spock’s ebony lashes closing, imagined his hands on Spock’s ass, holding him still, as he tongued Spock with all his skill, fluttering and lapping, alternating between rough-wet-silky-hot-velvet. If he did his job well enough, Spock might have to brace on the wall, and his knees might get shaky. He indulged himself, picturing it, as he lipped at the soft loose skin on the ridges. 

Spock was already rock-hard, flushed a deep beautiful jade, and a droplet of salty, coppery fluid welled at the tip of him when McCoy drew back. He wondered if he could get Spock to ejaculate without meaning to, get him to give it up, get him to spend his seed on McCoy’s tongue. He wanted it so badly even his fingertips ached, an electric sensation of yearning, of need.

The music blasted so loudly it probably masked the sound of his moan, but he knew Spock could feel it. Spock quivered slightly in response. McCoy nuzzled him, teasing him, letting him feel the slight stubble of his beard. Then he went down, agonizingly slow. Sliding millimeter by millimeter, he wet Spock thoroughly, feeling the slight lengthwise ridge of the raphe traveling steadily along the center of his tongue.

He buried his nose in the silky hair at Spock’s groin, managing to draw a careful breath around Spock’s thickness in his throat. Spock smelled like soap and spice, and McCoy moaned again.

He wanted to spend the rest of his fucking life sucking this cock. His eyes fluttered shut and he stilled for a moment to compose himself, feeling unexpected tears prickle at the corners of his eyelids. 

His fingertips circled lightly, reverently, touching the small area of Spock’s skin that was all he could reach at the base of his cock, lingering where the scrotum would begin in a human. Spock’s balls lay tucked away inside his abdomen; he didn’t have the loose, vulnerable sac a human would, but McCoy touched him there anyway. 

He couldn’t help it. 

He started sucking again, wanting more, more, more. He ached to put his hands all over Spock-- to shape the rounds of his ass, dip between the cheeks, linger between the thighs, slide across his belly, chest, pinch his dusky olive-dark nipples. He longed to trace the curve and sharp of Spock’s ear, to ruffle his hair, to run his thumbs over Spock’s brows, to feel the tender crepe-thin skin of his eyelids, the butterfly-soft ruff of his lashes. He wanted to look up right now and see those deep brown eyes looking back at him. He wondered if Spock would reach down and move the sweat-damp fringe of his hair away from his face. He just might.

McCoy caught himself making that low, keening moan again, and forced himself to stop. He varied his rhythm with deliberate care; he didn’t want Spock to come too fast this time, didn’t want to be caught off guard. He didn’t want this to end.

He rocked forward, matching the subtle rocking that was all Spock could do with the wall between them. He sensed the leashed power trembling in Spock’s body, the exponential increase of pleasure and desire eloquent in the dampness that started to gather on Spock’s skin under McCoy’s fingertips, in the salt that leaked out of him. He could smell Spock’s lust. As his arousal grew his scent changed-- harsher, a lot like an ancient, tarnished copper penny McCoy’s grandfather once let him handle when he was small. 

Now he was glad of the wall; it let him draw this out even though he sensed Spock might clasp his head if he could and force him to move faster, force him to hurry the act toward its inevitable conclusion. And if it were anyone else, McCoy would speed up on his own. His knees hurt and his jaw burned like fire; his throat felt raw and his cock hurt. He could only shift back and forth, dragging it against the center seam of his jeans, because he didn’t have a hand to spare for touching himself. 

The music dimmed, pausing, changing-- and he heard the wall creak. He realized it was moving subtly, distorting slightly outward toward him as Spock pushed his body against it, seeking more of his mouth.

He made a throttled gasp at the realization, drawing back in a moment of awe; his trembling fingers touched the shaft of Spock’s cock, feeling its spit-slick heat blazing against the pads. The wall creaked again, ominous, and this time McCoy could hear it in spite of the rising sound of the synth-tech beat. Spock’s cock jerked as his muscles flexed, the instinct to thrust driving him forward. The wall shivered visibly.

Hastily McCoy slid back down, giving Spock what he wanted-- he didn’t give a good goddamn about the fucking wall, but if it broke, he wouldn’t have anywhere left to hide. 

Awareness of the threat broke through his reverie, the timeless sense of bliss; now he moved aggressively, driving down, dragging off again, letting Spock feel the softest touch of his teeth, then soothing the scrape with tongue and lips. He couldn’t delay this forever; if he tried, maybe Spock really would tear down the wall to get at him. He could sense it without needing a meld. He felt the truth of it it in the very tension of the cock between his lips. Lust pulsed through Spock like gathering thunder, a tangible threat McCoy was sure wasn’t entirely confined to his imagination.

He drew back and clasped his hand around the shaft, stroking with strong purpose, firm and sure; the slide of his spit helped with the friction. He pillowed the tip on his tongue, wanting Spock to understand his desire-- challenging him to give it up, laving the taut blunt head with all the skill at his command, probing the slit for the elusive, maddening taste, rubbing one wet thumb just so against the nerve bundle at the base of Spock’s foreskin.

He heard a gasp and felt the wall shake as Spock came, giving him what he craved: the sweet-salt flood on his tongue, his mouth filled with rich, hot seed. McCoy swallowed, milking him for all of it, licking until he knew it was too much sensation and he had to stop.

Spock drew back, fast like a striking snake, and deep in McCoy’s hindbrain some primitive, atavistic instinct born of the need to flee his own impending death trumpeted a warning. McCoy jerked himself upright, ignoring his screaming knees, and flung himself flat against the wall, trying to make himself as invisible as he could. His hand instinctively rose to protect his cock, and it touched wetness; he’d come when Spock did, and he hadn’t even known it. 

He tilted his head to the side and looked down with caution, seeing Spock’s fingertips appear at the edges of the hole. Spock could crane his head as much as he was able, but unless he suddenly sprouted eye stalks, he couldn’t see anything except the hole and the opposite wall and the people in between in an expanding cone, and McCoy sagged, just about hysterical with relief that he was no longer among them. 

How the fucking _hell_ he was going to get out of there, McCoy didn’t know. His disguise from before would have been cataloged in Spock’s subconscious memory, and would be remembered at once if Spock spotted it again. This time, the respirator would be a dead giveaway that its occupant was hiding his face.

He snatched the strap of his carry-all and glided hastily to the right, toward the exit, calculating the edges of that cone of visibility and staying well out of range. It wouldn’t take long for Spock to abandon the hole; he was probably already seeking a way around the wall. 

McCoy grabbed at a passing server, jostling a tray of empty glasses. One of them fell and shattered, but McCoy didn’t care. “Dammit man, I’ve got to fucking hide!” He hissed, afraid to let his voice travel. “I’ll give you all the money I’ve got. Don’t you understand? That guy I just blew, I know him. He’s _coming_. He’ll _kill_ me if he finds out I was the one. He’s a fucking _Vulcan_. Don’t let on, or he’ll kill you, too!”

The guy took one look at the whites of his eyes, at the frenzy of dread on his face, and _believed_. He hustled McCoy into a dingy, horrible backstage area where servers ran to and fro and a few exotic dancers wandered past, festooned in beads and feathers. They hardly spared him a glance. Maybe this kind of shit happened all the time. Hell, McCoy didn’t know, and he wasn’t going to stick around long enough to find out.

“Where the hell’s the exit?” McCoy fumbled over an unsecured credit chip with a very small fortune on it, then made a desperate break for freedom, escaping into the air and sprinting hell for leather for the nearest corner before Spock could abandon his survey of the room McCoy had just vacated and come outside to search instead.

He kept tossing desperate glances over his shoulder; exasperated at his own panic, but he knew that if he didn’t want to be caught, no amount of panicked haste was unjustified. Whatever Spock’s suspicions were, he wouldn’t let any grass grow under him. The fucker was brutally smart, remorselessly efficient, and trained to a brilliant degree of accuracy in just this sort of pursuit. 

The knowledge lent wings to McCoy’s feet, and he burned up the ground faster than he’d run since he was on the track team in high school, ignoring his laboring heart and the growing stitch in his side. He kept to the alleys where he wouldn’t draw any attention, one eye peeled for a bolt hole. Damn it, he should’ve planned better; he should’ve had an escape route in place before he ever went in there, but he’d been too afraid of missing Spock.

He didn’t dare make his way back to the landing coordinates, but dived into a hotel at random, where he booked a room under an assumed name and went to ground, shaking with relief as the adrenaline drained slowly out of him. When he’d showered and shaved and got every damn bit of the club scent out of his hair, he took his incriminating shoulder bag and disguise down to the concierge and paid one of the bellhops to put it all in the incinerator. 

He realized he’d been a fool to touch Spock’s belly with his fingers; if Spock had thought to draw back a little while they were _in flagrante delicto_ , he would have seen them. Might have recognized them. Hell, he shouldn’t have gone down so far his nose touched Spock’s belly, either. A dead giveaway, that.

Next time he’d have to hang back and wear nail varn--

Next time?

_Excuse me, Leonard Horatio McCoy, did I just hear you say **next time**?_

Next time he’d need to set a transporter slave circuit he could trigger to beam him out the instant anything went wrong. He couldn’t route it through the Enterprise, either; it’d have to be planetary. 

McCoy flopped onto the bed, throwing his hand over his eyes, and groaned. He’d obviously been around Jim Kirk too long; he was starting to think just like the man, turning into a damned suicidal adrenaline junkie who thought he could get away with whatever he wanted. He hadn’t been this reckless since he was a kid back in Georgia, hiding from the thuggish homophobes in his home-town high school, a couple of whom were glad to let him suck them off behind the gym but would fucking well _murder_ him afterward if they thought they needed to cover up their own guilt and shame and prove they were straight in front of the others.

….He could still taste the sweet, addictive savor of Spock lingering in his mouth. His cock was stiffening at the very thought of it.

Holy _shit._ He was _so fucking fucked_.


	3. Chapter 3

McCoy got up at 0500 and made arrangements for the hotel he was in to beam him straight into the room Starfleet had booked for him near the landing coordinates. Then he took care to pinch up a plausible hickey on his neck and dressed himself jauntily in leisure clothes before strolling down to breakfast whistling, doing the best imitation of a relaxed post-coital mood he could manage. 

Scotty teased the hell out of him for the love bite, but McCoy just grinned at him, irrepressible, enjoying some extra berries with his wheat toast and poached egg. “There’s more where that came from,” he told the man with a broad wink. “I’m not planning to sleep again till we beam up.”

Spock was abnormally quiet, joining them at precisely his accustomed time. After helping himself to the buffet, he sat down with McCoy and Scott, offering a perfunctory greeting. Then he set to spooning up yogurt with cinnamon as if it were a distasteful chore he would be reprimanded for failing to complete.

“What’s the matter, Spock? Cat got your tongue?” McCoy goaded him, careful to hit just the right jovial note. 

“I am considering the particulars of a troubling mystery, doctor.” Spock told him coolly, not elaborating. “Pursuing its solution should prove interesting.”

“You’re on shore leave, man. You should leave it alone. Get some rest. Have some fun.” McCoy took a swallow of his coffee, grimacing; it was still a little too hot. “Oh wait; that counts as fun where you come from.” He winked at Scotty. “Probably the most excitement he’s had since the neighbor’s baby got gas on its stomach and looked like it was smiling. Imagine the scandal.”’

Spock fixed him with a glare that could’ve peeled paint. “Your medical knowledge should be sufficient to make you aware that is a fallacy even with human infants, doctor, and Vulcan babies do not smile.”

Of course they didn’t. 

“I can believe that.” He picked up his own tray and tipped his head to them both. “Sorry to abandon you with Mr. Congeniality here, Scotty, but I have a date with a pretty girl, a sandy beach, and a whiskey sour-- not necessarily in that order.” He made his escape.

*****

Their hotel was within walking distance of the seaside, and McCoy didn’t actually have plans, so he went up to his room for a swimsuit, then discovered a nearby sweep of black sand beach and commandeered a lounge chair underneath a nice, shady umbrella, surveying the wind-tossed sea with pleasure. Once he was settled, though, his mind wouldn’t allow him to rest. 

It was over; it had to be. Never mind last night’s crazy plans. He’d been half drunk on club smoke and vape and adrenaline and _Spock_. He licked his lip slowly, dropping his gaze and flushing with embarrassment even though no one was there to see him. Some self-psychologist he was. His professors back at Ole Miss would have skinned him alive-- it was classic sublimation: he’d substituted antagonism for attraction ever since day one.

He couldn’t just worry about that, though. He had to worry about how much the green-blooded bastard knew-- and how much he could figure out, now that he had reason to try.

Contrary to popular belief, Leonard McCoy was on speaking terms with logic. Oh, not your superior snooty highbrow pointy-eared Surakian logic, but even Terran physicians were taught the scientific method and down home country Aristotelian logic was still required at the med school level-- right after the advanced seminar in the applied use of beads and rattles. He snorted.

As a result of Spock’s comments, McCoy was occupied constructing a Venn diagram in his head, more or less against his will. It was merciless, as relentless as Spock himself, and it contained overlapping bubbles tagged with the following labels:

  * Men who gave blowjobs in clubs 
  * Man who turned up in a sex club twice running on different planets just to blow S'chn T'gai Spock (and he knew he’d be clearly identifiable as the same man thanks to God only knew what kind of brutally definitive analysis... observations on his technique, style, body temperature…. What the fuck ever; hell, Spock probably immediately had him pegged as Terran from body temperature alone, without even considering the shape of his teeth) 
  * Men traveling aboard the USS Enterprise (Vulcans probably didn’t believe in amazing coincidences like running into the same guy again purely by accident halfway across the galaxy, after all) 
  * Men traveling aboard the Enterprise who’d just shared the same shore leave period with S'chn T'gai Spock twice in succession (a damned short list) 
  * Men traveling aboard the Enterprise who had no psi ability (he had to have noticed the absence; he was already in full Suspicion Mode)
  * Men with access to ways-- and the necessary knowledge-- to suppress their natural psi ability (an even shorter damned list)
  * Men traveling aboard the Enterprise who had the knowledge to recognize a Vulcan by his cock (two people tops, both doctors, unless maybe Spock had been doing the nasty with Jim and the two of them just weren’t telling) 
  * Leonard Horatio FUCKING McCoy 



That last one wasn’t a bubble; it was the only data point where all the others intersected. And no matter how he sliced it, that data point was the inevitable conclusion of overlapping all the other bubbles. 

Jesus _Christ._ It was all right fucking _there._

The sudden sweat under McCoy’s balls wasn’t from the sun beating down on top of his umbrella. If he’d already constructed that diagram himself, then Spock was only one short comm call behind-- and the shore leave rosters would take him about a nanosecond to process. Hell, he’d probably made them himself and already had them memorized.

He stared at his communicator. Maybe he should just call Jim now and resign his commission, then start running from the inevitable humiliation, the agonizing, inadequate apology, and the interminable five year mission filled with plenty of the hobgoblin’s stiff, bitter resentment-- all of which he had fully earned, and richly deserved. There had to be some place along this beach where he could rent a boat or some kind of one-man watercraft and hope for the relatively dignified option of drowning himself with his own incompetence, followed by informal burial at sea. Were there even hurricanes on this planet? Maybe he could head straight out into the open ocean and hope to hell he found one.

He was on the point of leaping to his feet and getting the hell out of there when the unmistakable sound of Scotty’s brogue floated across the dunes. Spock’s deep voice answered, trapping him on the spot. Fuck, he could feel his heart rate ratcheting up to about 180 BPM, thumping so hard it could be seen fluttering at his pulse points, just like somebody was running a jackhammer in there. Spock would hear that, without a doubt. He probably already could. 

_Relax. He probably won’t bring it up in front of Scotty._

McCoy snatched up his abandoned padd and laid it over his lap, pretending he’d been busy reading when they came over the dunes, wishing he hadn’t told the truth about where he was going, wishing he’d never even heard of blowjobs, wishing he was wearing a lot more clothes, wishing-- wishing the light and the wind weren’t so _fucking beautiful_ playing in Spock’s now-ruffled hair, wishing _Spock_ was wearing a lot more; holy _fucking fuck_ that was a _black Speedo_ under that translucent cotton cover-up. His heart rate ratcheted up from “jackhammer” to “dull whine.” 

“Ah, there ye are!” Scotty was apparently unconcerned that he was wearing only a pair of swim trunks, his sun-deprived skin demonstrating an albedo of one. Or maybe more like one hundred; he was _that white,_ even paler than McCoy, who was plenty pale himself. “Oh good, there’re plenty of chairs.” He flopped down in the one to McCoy’s left and promptly broke out the sunblock. “The beach was a great idea,” he enthused. “We decided t’join ye.”

Spock sedately took the chair to McCoy’s right, which sat fully in the sun. He removed his cotton cover up and folded it neatly, tucked it into a pouch in the chair, then closed his eyes and tipped back his head, exposing the long line of throat, chest, and belly as he soaked up the light. McCoy forgot how to speak for an embarrassingly long interval and kept his padd held firmly over his lap, wishing it were considerably larger. 

“I’ll be damned,” he finally managed. “Look at you! My great-grandmother would’ve said you look like you just stepped out of the Sears and Roebuck catalog.” Only they’d probably never sold anything quite that suggestive, because if they had, they’d never have gone out of business, --and if his great-grandmother had ever laid eyes on Spock in a Speedo, she wouldn’t have known what to do first: try to cover him with a quilt or beat him half to death with her walking cane. “Will wonders never cease.”

Spock let the words pass without comment and McCoy accepted that with relief, turning his attention to the padd and pretending disinterest. 

It was pretty much impossible. There was a glare on the screen and Scotty kept nattering on about nothing much. “Look at the sea birds! Fish must be schooling in the shallows. If I had a rod and a reel and some bait--”

McCoy made an amiable grunt and kept pretending to read. Spock’s silence, originally a boon, began to grate on him nearly as much as Scotty’s idle chatter. After a while he couldn’t stand it anymore. “I’m too hot. I’m going for a swim.” He strode away from them toward the welcoming green water, hoping against hope for a riptide or an undertow. 

The water was a little warm, but McCoy went in anyway, wading out through the foam and the sand until the water picked him up, choosing his moment to swim through the gentle break of the surf, then bobbing for a while just beyond that with his feet barely touching bottom. Not a shark to be seen. Just his luck. 

A swell lifted him from the bottom, and he went with it, relaxing a little in spite of himself. Out in the water he felt isolated-- safer-- buffered from his friends on the shore. He cast a glance back just in case.

_Shit!_

Spock was standing ankle-deep in the foam, looking out at him. Seeing that McCoy had observed his presence, he began to walk forward into the surf. 

It took the average human between three and four minutes to suffer brain death from drowning, and Spock was going to get here a lot faster than that. McCoy swore. He should’ve stayed in his chair, safely eclipsed by Scotty’s cheerful yammering. 

Who would’ve known Spock could even swim? Though as McCoy watched, it was obvious he hadn’t done any of his swimming in anything wilder than a public pool. He had no idea how to time the surf, and as he tried to proceed through the break point, a wave crested, splashing him and sweeping him under.

 _Damn._ McCoy was swimming hard for shore before he knew it, powerful strokes, bent on rescue-- but Spock surfaced, hair sleeking back, blowing water, and McCoy reached out in haste to steady him as the next wave swept through, nearly knocking them down.

“You gotta time the waves, or they’ll push you over and choke you. Here. Follow me.” He drew back as the next wave crested just to the side, then beckoned Spock forward. “They cycle; if you’re careful picking your moment, you can go through the shoulder, not the break. Then you won't get half-drowned. Stand up for the swells and swim in the troughs until you get past the breakers. Then you can bob.”

Spock obeyed, and soon they were beyond the surf, floating together in a glimmering green desert of gently rolling water, bright sun glinting off the ripples. 

“What is the point of being in this place, in this way?” Spock inquired, glancing about as the trough of a swell isolated them from beach and ocean alike. They bobbed over its top only to float down into the next, listening to a wave break behind them. McCoy’s toes brushed sand for a moment, then lifted again. “I understand swimming for exercise, but you appeared to be floating here without the intent to do so.”

“It’s a lot more peaceful than listening to Scotty.” Crisis past, McCoy felt embarrassment return. “Look.” He pointed at the next swell, translucent against the sun. A shoal of silver fish darted through the wall of water in front of their faces, then vanished, and the swell lifted them on its crest, the fish already long gone. “Ever see anything like that up close?”

“I have not,” Spock admitted. 

“You should try reef diving. You’d probably think it’s fascinating.” McCoy stared down into the water, where a school of fish parted to dart around his legs, perfect streamlined wedges moving through the water at the next best thing to warp speed, perfectly in synch. Spock’s legs were nearby, appearing rippled from refraction, and the fish avoided them gracefully as well. “This is more like, I don’t know. Meditation.”

“Ah.” Spock seemed satisfied with that, and was content for a time to float at McCoy’s side, bobbing gently on the water and regarding the darting shoals of fish playing in the waves all around their bodies, swift and sure, catching the sunlight on their gleaming scales. 

McCoy decided the damned hobgoblin must not have made his Venn diagram yet. What a hell of a time to take McCoy’s advice about R&R. He let himself start to relax.

“Doctor McCoy, I would like to make a personal inquiry.”

“Ask away.” _Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK. Plausible deniability, that was the name of the game. Saving face. Letting them both pretend it never happened. Please, God. Let Spock torment him for a little while to get it out of his system and then let the matter **go**._

“What health condition prompted you to begin self-treatment with benzodiazepine?”

McCoy scowled. “Who said you could pry into my personnel files?” It was a pro forma complaint, and they both knew it; the first officer had the privilege of doing so at any time he wanted. “Anxiety from living on a flying time bomb with Jim Kirk in the center seat, determined to have a pissing contest with every alien species he meets,” McCoy answered promptly, despite his complaint. 

“Are you aware of its side effects?”

McCoy gave him side-eye. “Well, I’m not about to get pregnant and have a baby with birth defects, if that’s what’s bugging you.”

“Long term usage may also have harmful effects on balance and cognition, and may create dependence on the drug.” He didn’t say anything about the psi blindness. Thank God.

“And my wits are short enough to begin with?” He anticipated Spock, sharp with sarcasm. 

“That is indeed a concern. Further side effects include an extreme depression of telepathic conductivity, a condition I had occasion to observe first-hand when you touched me in the surf.”

 _Shit, fuck, and damnation. The bastard tricked me into touching him._ McCoy groaned to himself as one more bubble on the diagram settled irrevocably over the data point. 

“That must be a relief for you.” McCoy made himself sound unconcerned, tipping his head back and closing his eyes as his body followed, floating on the waves. Water rushed in to fill his ears. A bird not entirely unlike a pelican swept by overhead, then dove into the surf after a fish. The water around him, visible through the corner of one eye as a swell drew near, was suddenly filled with darting silver bodies, as fleet and ungraspable as McCoy’s shattered thoughts. 

Spock sank beneath the surface and emerged again, hair slicked down into its accustomed place, water droplets shining on his shoulders. He treaded water next to McCoy looking like the devil’s own wet dream, damn him. 

“Doctor McCoy, is there anything you would particularly like to communicate to me?” The question was inevitable, placid as a frozen lake in winter, yet laden with implicit threat. The water in McCoy’s ears muffled his words, but did not drown them. 

“There sure is.” McCoy glared up at the sun, which glared right back at him. It was winning, but he wasn’t yet ready to admit defeat. 

“Yes?” Spock sounded mildly expectant, untroubled.

“If you expect to spend the morning out here with me, you’re going to have to shut up and float.”

Spock did so.


	4. Chapter 4

McCoy finally decided his fingers were pruned badly enough he ought to to go ashore-- and he figured Spock was freezing, too, though the bastard wouldn’t let on. Scotty lay snoring on his lounge chair with McCoy’s padd dangling from his fingers and an incomprehensible article about artificially enhanced dilithium crystallization matrices displayed on the screen. 

McCoy tossed his own towel to Spock, who had come surprisingly ill-prepared, and went for a stroll to air dry and recollect his composure. He might not ever have turned around and gone back, except eventually he came to a jetty of volcanic stone, a relatively recent magma flow that was too rough to climb, and it didn’t leave him much option. He found a shell lying there in the sand, perfect and unbroken, pale ivory with a rosy pink throat. Fractal whorls of calcium carbonate spiraled from the center out toward the edge, very much like seashells from Earth. 

McCoy put it in his pocket to keep, since it seemed unoccupied. 

He wandered back to the chairs eventually. Scotty had roused himself and was reading. Spock lay belly up in his chair, and appeared to be deeply asleep-- or maybe meditating, or some other Vulcan thing. The sun had dried him; his flesh shone, melanin already starting to come to the surface, transforming his ship-pale body into a gleaming, faintly olivine statue that pulled McCoy’s heart right up into his throat and made his blood thunder through his veins, singing in his ears. He swallowed hard, struggling to pull himself together before Spock could rouse and become aware of his torment. _Jesus Christ. How the fuck does he do this to me?_

When he looked up again, undone and distraught, Scotty was looking at him, eyes wide, expression sober. 

“Turn over before you fry alive, you pointy-eared exhibitionist.” McCoy made his voice gruff, nudging Spock’s ribs with his knee. Spock turned over without speaking and cradled his head in the crook of his arm, resettling without a word. McCoy wrenched his eyes away from the smooth expanse of Spock’s back and flopped into his own chair, reclaiming his towel, which lay on the sand at Spock’s side. 

He sat there trying to reassemble the fragments of his brain, but they kept slipping away from him, his thoughts circling like the silver fish, elusive and maddening.

This was worse than running. This was _hell_. Spock knew, and McCoy knew Spock knew, and Spock knew McCoy knew Spock knew McCoy knew….

Scotty’s hand fell on his arm and gave his biceps a squeeze. Apparently he intended to offer comfort. 

“A lovely day,” he said, but his eyes flickered toward Spock. “Unexpected ‘n rare, a treasure. It almost hurts ta know we’ll be goin’ back aboard soon.”

“If we stayed here we’d get bored with it in a hurry,” McCoy answered the unspoken meaning in Scotty’s eyes. “You’ve got your engines. I’ve got my sickbay. Spock’s got….” he hesitated. “Whatever the hell it is that Spock’s got.” _Other than a damned fine ass._ “Logic or something.”

“Or something.” Spock repeated, rousing himself at last. “It is time to seek nourishment.”

They got sandwiches at a little bistro just off the beach-- Spock chose hummus and greens in a pita, Scotty had ham and cheese, and McCoy made do with chicken salad. They sat together on the patio. It felt strange but pleasant to eat outside with his co-workers-- except every time he started to relax, he’d glance at Spock and tighten up inside. 

Spock finished first, setting his plate aside neatly. “I wish to try skin diving. Perhaps there is a business that will take us out to explore the reef.”

In the end they asked a waiter and took off for the address he recommended. McCoy found himself lagging behind, staring at his two friends in bemusement as they all rented snorkels and fins and rode out together in a speedboat, then went paddling around with their asses in the air and their faces in the water. 

It was insane. Surreal. He was so agitated he kept forgetting to clear his snorkel before he inhaled and nearly choked himself half to death, but the bright tropical fish and the strange plants and animals of the reef were just as fascinating as he’d promised Spock.

By the time they got back on dry land, the sun was setting over the ocean and Scotty was starting to give both him and Spock nervous looks.

He brought himself to the point at last. “I’ve got t’go; I promised Sulu and Chekov we’d meet and go to a little place where Sulu can try a bit o’ the native sushi. Mind you, it’s not a patch on haggis, and Chekov’d rather have borscht or okroshka, but soup’s not a proper meal, t’my mind.” He was babbling, glancing back and forth between Spock and McCoy, and McCoy abruptly became aware that Spock was definitely broadcasting his desire for Scott to leave. His posture was closed, his arms folded, his head, feet, and torso pointed firmly away from Scotty, and he wasn’t responding to verbal cues.

By contrast, McCoy himself was practically pleading “stay here,” to the extent he had a hand resting on Scotty’s shoulder and hadn’t let go for the past five minutes. 

He took a deep breath and dropped his hand; Scotty gave him a sympathetic look-- then shot McCoy a quick wink. “Whit’s fur ye’ll no go by ye,” he said, mysteriously, and left without looking back.

“Well. It’s been a good day, but I’ve got a date of my own,” McCoy said, a little too brightly, breaking the silence as soon as Scott had left. “I’d better get back to the hotel to shower and dress.”

Spock let him go, still standing there on the sidewalk next to the open-air beach shower.

 _Running. Again._ At an amble, carefully calculated to maximize the impression of nonchalance, true. But he was running nonetheless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Whit’s fur ye’ll no go by ye:_ what's for you won't go by you, or whatever is meant to happen will happen


	5. Chapter 5

When Spock was well out of sight, McCoy stopped to calm down and bought himself some dinner at a walk-through restaurant near the sea, one where they didn’t mind his lack of fancy dress. He didn’t much want the strangely sweet fish filet they broiled for him; he was too busy hating the thought that Spock would probably go out again tonight, pick a bar, and find… someone else waiting for him on the other side of the wall. But Bones had learned his lesson; it’d been a damned close call. If Spock would just let it go, they could go on and still be, well, whatever it was they were. 

He finally dragged himself into his hotel, downcast and tired of the grit between his toes. Plodding into the shower, he dropped trou. His trunks made a dismal damp splat on the clean tiles and grains of fine black sand went flying everywhere. He left them lying.

The shower picked him up a little-- real water, though it was a bit brackish so near the ocean. He rinsed all the sand out of his hair and worked hard to wash the sunblock off his body, scrubbing until he was pink all over. Wrapping a towel around his waist, he went out to the room and sat down on the bed, reaching for the room service menu. He needed something stronger than the fish filet to get him to sleep tonight-- maybe a fifth of Jack. 

“So this is your date,” the deep voice reverberated through the utter silence of the room, and McCoy clutched the menu, mind exploding with panic. “A room service menu. Doubtless you intend to order alcohol and spend your evening brooding rather than spending it with me.” He paused. “It is apparent you lied when you said you planned to meet a woman.”

McCoy lurched to his feet. “Spock…” his throat froze up; he couldn’t think of another word to say. 

Spock stepped forward from the shadows; he too had taken time to shower, and his hair still looked damp. He wore some kind of shimmering deep blue fabric with a geometric design textured into the weave; it covered him from shoulders to feet, but it was not a tunic. The front was open, and it had no buttons. Pajamas? As he stepped forward, it fluttered, revealing loose, low-slung trousers of the same material.

McCoy realized his mouth was hanging open, but he still couldn’t speak. As he surged to his feet, defensive, the menu slipped from his nerveless hand and slid off the edge of the bed onto the floor.

This was it. It was going down. He couldn’t avoid it any longer.

Spock came to him with a measured, catlike tread that made no sound in the thick carpet of the suite. His feet were bare, McCoy noticed with absent appreciation, but then there was no more time for trifles, because Spock didn’t stop on the edge of his personal space. He didn’t stop until he was standing directly in front of McCoy, and McCoy felt the backs of his knees pressing against the side of the bed.

Spock reached out, the ends of his long fingers settling against McCoy’s jaw, and pushed, tipping his head to one side. Spock studied him, and McCoy suddenly realized he was examining the fake love-bite.

“That was not made by a partner. The marks are consistent with the width and diameter of your own fingers.”

“The hell you say!” 

Spock’s other hand came out of his pocket-- holding McCoy’s vaporizer. He’d left it in his jacket pocket; the jacket hung over his desk chair. _Shit!_

“The scent in this device is familiar to me.” He displayed it for McCoy’s inspection, then tilted his hand. Two loose fill cylinders clicked between his fingers. “As is the scent in one of these. Do you intend to continue your attempts to prevaricate, doctor?”

McCoy swallowed. “Those are pretty common scents. I don’t see what the hell you’re getting at, Spock.” Die irrevocably cast, McCoy summoned up a glower. 

“Do you not?” It was barely a murmur, but it rumbled, and Spock moved his hand, his long fingers moving with the slow, liquid grace of a dancer. His forefinger settled against McCoy’s lip, tracing its curve-- not lightly, but with sensual power, the heavy press of the finger parting McCoy’s lips, moving the lower one against his teeth. 

McCoy swallowed thickly, and realized his chest was rising and falling rapidly as though he had run a race, breath escaping him in shallow gasps, and his lips remained parted. Paralyzed by sudden, devastating lust, he was helpless to resist Spock’s touch. 

Spock did not relent; his body leaned closer, making McCoy teeter a little, balance precarious. He traced farther around McCoy’s lips, eyes fixed on them, his face impassive but meditative, thoughtful, dark eyes dilated. 

“You followed me to the club last night.”

McCoy shook his head vehemently and drew breath-- he was guilty as hell of that particular charge, though he meant to deny the fuck out of it, but the finger pressed harder, silencing him.

“You waited for me by the wall.”

Spock showed no flicker of what he was thinking, no hint of clement emotion-- but no sign of anger, either. He simply spoke, his dark eyes fixed on McCoy’s face, as if he were discussing an elementary logic problem.

“You have performed fellatio upon me twice to date.”

McCoy’s stomach fluttered wildly, and his cock twitched against the towel to hear the words spoken in that impassive, smoke-dark voice. His eyes slid shut; he could not meet Spock’s gaze. McCoy gulped, feeling his adam’s apple bob. 

The action moved his lips against Spock’s finger, almost like a kiss, and Spock drew breath with a faint, audible hiss. McCoy’s eyes fluttered open again. He stared guiltily as the black pupils of Spock’s eyes swallowed the irises whole, and again McCoy teetered as Spock pressed forward. 

“Why?”

Spock truly didn’t know. He couldn’t read McCoy’s mind right now even if he wanted. 

McCoy blinked, staring into Spock’s eyes, and the knowledge his mind was his own gave him a strange sense of power: in this one thing, for this one moment, they were equal. And….

Something clicked, very quietly, in his brain. Spock was his superior officer; he could call McCoy up on the carpet for these shenanigans, probably even drum him out of the service if he wanted. But he hadn’t. Instead, they’d spent what should have been a very pleasant day together. They hadn’t argued once.

And now Spock was here in civvies. That meant this wasn’t _official_. If it was, Spock’d be in his commander’s armor, his uniform blues. Instead… he had on his fucking pajamas. And he was touching McCoy. Touching his _mouth_.

This wasn’t Starfleet at all. ….This was _foreplay._ This was _sex._

Slowly, his heart going mad in his chest, his good sense yammering frantic warnings his hormones just wouldn’t listen to, McCoy parted his lips and deliberately licked the pad of Spock’s finger. 

Spock drew a second hoarse, husky breath, his lids sliding down, half-hooding his eyes. The finger remained where it was.

McCoy licked again, running the rough pad of his tongue over the copper-salt tang of Spock’s fingertip, curling his tongue around the finger's length, tilting his head to reach more. Spock remained still, breathing hard through parted lips, watching as he nuzzled and licked and ran his lips worshipfully over the fingers that touched his mouth. Their eyes caught and held, and McCoy could feel his breath going out of control, ragged in his chest. Spock’s eyes _blazed_ in his still face, burning with dark fire. 

McCoy drew that entire long, elegant finger into his mouth and sucked, curving his tongue to pillow it, his hands catching Spock’s wrist-- more to hold himself upright than to hold Spock still, but he could feel the swift-racing pulse there, confirming Spock’s arousal. He varied the caress of his tongue with kisses, running his lips along damp skin, nuzzling, preening himself against Spock’s hand like an affectionate cat, trying to tell him everything he felt without embarrassing either of them with clumsy words.

Spock moved, pulling his hand free without effort, then pressed both forefingers into McCoy’s mouth, sliding them deep. Slowly he fucked McCoy's mouth with them, his eyes hooded.

McCoy felt his towel fall. The soft slick fabric of Spock’s pajamas whispered against his bare skin as he sucked Spock’s fingers, eyes closing with bliss, a low whimper in his throat. He tried to shift his feet, but he overbalanced and Spock's hand escaped as he fell back onto the bed, breath rushing from his lungs. 

Spock pressed forward to follow him down, one knee settling between his thighs, and leaned over him, catching McCoy’s wrists in his hands, raising them over his head, then pinioning them together under the solid weight of a single palm, immovable. His robe fell open around them, and he leaned in, his eyes fixed on McCoy’s mouth.

“Why?” he breathed again, and McCoy squirmed, trying to lift up to press against Spock’s body, but he was too far away. 

“Because,” McCoy confessed at last, unable to help it, his face burning with shame. “I couldn’t stand the thought of it being anybody else.”

Satisfied, Spock let McCoy’s wrists go free. He descended and took McCoy’s mouth, sinking his teeth in McCoy’s lower lip. Lust flared, and McCoy found himself clinging to Spock, bucking up against him, raking his hands over Spock’s long lean back and sides, over the jut of his narrow hips and between his powerful, muscular thighs, dragging down the sheer, silky folds of his pajama pants so they could slide together with no barriers between them.

Antagonism. Attraction. Aggression. Incendiary, drinking desire from Spock’s mouth, both of them grazing lips with teeth, tongues sliding together wickedly as the kiss flowed back and forth. Then Spock rolled them neatly, and his hands settled on McCoy’s head, urging him downward.

He went eagerly, biting and licking his way across Spock’s chest, the little olive buds there rising under his tongue, taut between his lips. Spock’s eyes blazed down at him, urgent, impatient, but McCoy would not be rushed; he loved the way the sting of his teeth made Spock’s breath come faster. You didn’t get a lot of clues out of Spock; every tiny hint mattered. 

He set his hands over Spock’s hipbones and let his thumbs brush the thin, vulnerable skin, making an involuntary shiver run through him. 

Sensitive? _Fuck, yes._ He set his mouth in one of the hollows by the prominent bones and began to suck, scraping with teeth and tongue until Spock’s harsh breaths turned to subvocal gasps, then to helpless, tiny grunts, half-throttled in his throat. McCoy ached to hear him moan, whimper, maybe even _growl…._

He licked, kissed, then bit the quivering flesh under his lips. Taken off-guard, Spock yelped, a sharp, desperate sound gasping from his throat. McCoy laughed, giddy and triumphant, as Spock’s cock jerked, leaving a stripe of wet against his jaw. “You’re next,” he told it. That seemed to remind Spock he had hands. He threaded them into McCoy’s hair, dragging him down and over, and McCoy went willingly.

He paused, lower lip supporting the tip of the straining shaft, and gazed up along the length of Spock’s belly. He waited until Spock raised his head and those dark, dark eyes opened and locked with his. 

Then he went down, fluttering his tongue, dragging his teeth subtly, and Spock’s voice dropped an octave, rumbling in his chest. “Perhaps in the future you should abandon speech and devote your mouth solely to this activity inste--”

McCoy growled low in his throat and Spock’s head fell back. His fingers knotted in the sheets. 

He was free now to explore just as he liked, with no wall between them. Hands free to roam, discovering the texture of Spock’s skin-- reassuringly soft and springy, with muscle and bone flexing beneath. Like a human’s, save for the temperature. 

At last he could savor Spock-- explore every fold and curve, tracing them with lips, tongue, the tip of his nose, nestling his face and jaw against Spock’s cock, against his belly. 

He kissed his way down one long thigh, nipping and leaving marks as he went, savoring the way the tension jerked tighter with every new addition. He made Spock roll over before he worked his way back up, then spread him, looking down with appreciation, wondering if he dared. 

He’d soften him up first, that was a good plan.

He trailed nips and nuzzles along the creases between buttock and thigh, working inward until he was nuzzling between the cheeks. Spock tasted amazingly clean, his skin fresh with a faint tang of soap. McCoy meant to make him sweat, though, and lick the coppery salt right off him.

“Doctor,” Spock craned his neck with surprise, gazing over one shoulder. “The activity you are contemplating is hardly hygienic.”

“Shut up, Spock.” 

McCoy led with his tongue, curling it and pushing inside, and oh, it was worth a little down and dirty action to hear Spock gasp aloud and then groan deep in his core, to feel the shudder that coursed through him. Spock fell forward onto his elbows, burying his face in the crook of his arm, trying to stifle the frantic sounds he made. 

“Lube. Top drawer,” McCoy muttered thickly, and fumbled the cap open when Spock passed it to him. Spock spread his knees, opening wider, and McCoy stroked gel over his ass, not caring where he got it or how much he used. Spock was maddeningly beautiful, impossible. This was a dream; it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.

Possessed by a sudden madness of haste lest he wake up and find himself alone, McCoy slicked a finger and pressed it inside with slow care, rotating and sliding in and out, adding more gel and pushing it in until Spock was slick and panting, his breath rasping in his throat. 

“Now,” he husked, and when he picked up his head, his heavy-lidded eyes pierced McCoy with the heat of his demand. “You will not hurt me.”

McCoy lined up, biting his lip to try to back off the need to come at the sight of Spock laid out willing before him, and tried to go slowly so Spock could adjust, but Spock pushed back, swallowing him up. He was wickedly tight, the clutch of his muscles almost punishing. McCoy gasped for air, unable to draw breath into lungs that disobeyed his command to breathe.

Spock squeezed him, displaying that same barely-masked impatience that had nearly splintered the wall, and McCoy obliged him with only the slightest rocking of his hips, holding tight to Spock so he couldn’t be hurried. 

“Should’ve known you’d be a pushy bottom,” he purred, not at all displeased. He ran his palms along Spock’s back, savoring the taut muscles and the beginnings of sweat on his skin. “Don’t rush me.”

Spock dropped his head again, breathing shallowly. McCoy obliged him with a deeper thrust, and as Spock loosened, he slowly extended his thrusts, lifting Spock’s hips slightly, until Spock gasped and lunged back, seeking more of the sensation.

“Mmm, so that bit of you works,” McCoy exulted. “Good. It’ll make this feel a lot better.” 

Spock groaned low in his throat and lifted himself, opening to allow McCoy deeper, so McCoy obliged him-- struggling to keep his arousal in check; failing. Spock pushed back, urging him on to a deep, hard, strenuous fucking, taking it easily, his body growing slick with sweat. Sweat dripped off McCoy’s hair, his chin, his nose; he drove himself on with breath rasping in his chest. 

He clung and clawed for control, cursing, biting his own lips to distract himself from the onslaught of pure pleasure. Spock began to make keening sounds, growing louder every time he thrust, and knowing it was _Spock_ mewling for him like that nearly drove McCoy to distraction. Together the two of them must be keeping half the hotel awake; someone might just call the police and report an animal in pain-- if not for the thumping of the headboard against the wall.

He got a hand under Spock and stroked him hard, sweat and traces of lubricant making his fist slippery. He let his head fall back and his eyes shut as he gave up all effort at self control and just slammed in and in and in-- until Spock’s muscles clenched him tight and slick hot fluid jetted over his hand. McCoy gave a growling cry and bottomed out one last time, spilling inside Spock’s furnace-hot body. He collapsed onto Spock, who also fell to the mattress, and they lay entwined, gasping for breath. 

He managed to pry himself away and stagger into the bathroom for a warm, wet cloth after he recovered. Then he cleaned them both up, checking Spock for any damage in the process. Spock’s eyes followed him as he moved about, but he did not speak.

Finally McCoy finished and sat next to him, feeling strangely sober and oddly let-down, looking down at Spock’s bare body, trying to memorize everything-- every sight, every sound, every sensation: the curling matt of his chest hair, the lazy angle of his softening cock lying against his thigh. Would he ever see such a thing again? A hollow feeling rose in the pit of his stomach, and he wrapped his arm around his knee, feeling like he was holding himself together, clutching at his guts to keep them from spilling out of a wound. Would that be it for them, then? Did Spock have what he wanted now? 

Spock lay silent, sprawled over the bed, his rapid breath slowing as he savored the fading aftermath of the best fucking McCoy knew how to deliver.

“I find I do not like the silence of your mind,” Spock murmured at last, and his eyes opened, ink-dark pools in the dim room. “And yet each time you have touched me, your body has spoken for you.”

McCoy cleared his throat, uncomfortable. “What did it say?”

Spock considered him, patterns of light playing over his face as branches outside blew in the breeze. 

“It said you enjoyed what you did. It suggested your actions were not meant to mock or to shame, but that you undertook them for the satisfaction of giving pleasure, and that you had a preference for giving pleasure to me.” He lifted his hand and reached to slip fingertips under McCoy’s palm where it rested on his knee. “That theory has been reinforced by your behavior tonight.” He stroked McCoy’s fingers thoughtfully with his own. McCoy swallowed hard, his face flushing at the tenderness of the gesture-- and at the way it made fire pulse through his nerves and sing along his veins. 

McCoy pursed his lips a little, shifting with mild discomfort. “I suppose that’s an accurate assessment.” He gazed down at his toes, embarrassed. “I never expected to find you at a place like that. It’s dangerous, Spock. You should’ve seen the teeth on the Ferengi I ran off before he could--” he blushed harder. 

“Indeed.” Spock regarded him without change of expression. “That is why I hoped you would consider terms for an agreement, doctor.”

McCoy frowned at him, wary. “Terms?”

“It would be logical for us to indulge in such contact exclusively with one another, given the dangers of unknown alternatives. Particularly given what I believe may be… our mutual inclination toward one another.”

McCoy raised a brow at him, wry. _Mutual inclination?_ “That was _almost_ entirely unromantic. You’re slipping, Spock.” Still, he couldn’t deny his heart was beating faster. “What other terms… caveats… limitations?” God, this wasn’t discussing whether to go steady; this was a fucking contract negotiation. 

“Exclusivity. Honesty.” Spock’s eyes narrowed as he spoke the word, investing it with considerable stress, and McCoy had the good grace to drop his gaze, ashamed. 

“I would also prefer you cease taking benzodiazepine.” Spock’s voice was very soft. “But that is not required. It is merely my preference.”

McCoy felt a flutter of panic at the thought of lying belly to belly with Spock, exposed to the core of his soul, every ugly flaw on display, every nasty bitter scar, every weak and fragile feeling….

“I think you’d regret that.”

Spock raised himself, looking at him with an expression so thoughtful it made McCoy want to panic again. “Perhaps.”

McCoy nodded, his heart shriveling up. “I’ve seen how you respond to human emotion. It makes you uncomfortable as hell. You can hardly stand to be in the same room with Chapel, Spock, just because you know how much she adores you. But you say you want me to open up and show you everything?” God, his big fucking mouth. He might as well have got down on his knees and sworn eternal devotion! He bit his lip to shut himself up and curled into himself, miserable.

“Leonard,” Spock stopped him, rising up to sit with fingertips resting lightly over his mouth. “I believe I understand your distress. Perhaps…. Do you wish to know what you make me feel?”

McCoy’s breath stopped in his chest; time stood still as he lay impaled on those dark, calm eyes. “I….” he hesitated. “Yes.” He wanted to know; of course he did. He’d always wanted to… and yet, it terrified him. He felt himself go rigid with tension, and bit his lip, worrying it between his teeth.

“I like being with you,” Spock said, and McCoy’s stomach gave a funny little leap and twist. “I enjoy our arguments.” His hands began to move, skating over McCoy’s body. “I admire your skill at your job; I am touched by your compassion.” He dropped a kiss onto McCoy’s collarbone. “I take pleasure in touching you,” he breathed against McCoy’s skin, lingering over his pounding heart. “I desire your hands on me; I crave your mouth.” He licked McCoy’s nipple, lingering over it until he was half-mad with need. “Lust fills me at the thought of what we might do together.” His hand slid along McCoy’s flank, almost touching his cock… not quite, not quite near enough. 

“I regret the silence of your mind.” Spock lowered his eyes; McCoy realized his face was flushed, olive-green intensifying on his cheeks. His hand slid up, molding itself to McCoy’s face, fingertips settling onto the contact points. “Its quiet in this moment grieves me,” he whispered, lifting himself to bring their lips together, sweet and hesitant. He lingered, a butterfly brush of pressure, breathing McCoy’s breath.

McCoy whimpered, his whole body shivering with sweetness; he thought he would combust, and melt, and shiver apart from that caress. He surrendered to it, lips parting, and felt the slightest brush of Spock’s velvet-hot tongue against his own before Spock withdrew to study him anew. “I find I love the look in your eyes at this moment,” Spock said quietly, as calmly if he said such things every day, to everyone, without reservation. “And yet, I fear you do not share my feelings.” 

McCoy lay still, unable to speak for a long moment, stunned by the enormity of the gift. Then, without making a conscious decision, he pushed against Spock’s chest, moving him aside. On shaky legs he padded to the bathroom-- his wet swim trunks still lay where he’d left them, as remote as if he'd worn them in another universe, another lifetime. He stepped over them and went to the vanity, where the bottle of benzodiazepine sat neatly capped, still with a couple of dozen pills inside. Sand gritted under his feet, the unimportant detail painfully vivid. The plastic of the bottle was cool against his fingers, and the pills shifted inside with a quiet rattle. 

How much courage did it take for a Vulcan to confess to such things, when he-- when Leonard H. McCoy, who habitually wore his heart on his sleeve as a badge of honor-- ran like a coward and hid himself away? 

_Physician, heal thyself._

His fingers curled tight around the little brown bottle. Moving deliberately, he took it out to Spock. He set it in the Vulcan’s hand and watched as Spock examined the label, then put it aside.

“The current dose should wear off by midmorning.” McCoy licked his dry lips. “It may take a week or two for the residual effects to fade entirely; I don’t know when my psi capacity will return.” He blew a long sigh out, steeling himself. “Spock… I owe you an apology.”

“Leonard, I am not--”

“No, let me finish. I’ve given you a lot of shit through the years about being emotionally repressed, but the real emotionally immature jackass? It’s me. I’m sorry.” He sat down, hooking one leg onto the bed at Spock’s side. “I was afraid, Spock, and that’s the truth.” He reached out, picking up Spock’s hand. Spock seemed to like it when McCoy touched his fingers, so he stroked them lightly up and down. “I’m accepting your offer, and all its terms.” He cleared his throat, embarrassment burning bright on his skin. “Your feelings are returned, is what I’m saying, but I guess you’ll be able to find out for yourself soon enough.”

He reached to the bedtable, where his little shell lay, and picked it up. “Guess you’ll have to trust me until then, huh?”

Spock looked uncomfortable, taking the shell from him and examining it minutely, as if it were the most fascinating object he had ever seen. McCoy sat and waited him out, wondering what sort of revelation he was considering.

“I do,” Spock said at last, and lifted his somber gaze to McCoy. “We have agreed to be honest with one another. Before we proceed further, I am honor bound to confess: some months ago, when the captain informed me of your intention to visit a club for semi-anonymous homosexual relations, I followed you deliberately. I would not enter such a place without a significant reason.” He searched McCoy’s face, perhaps expecting to find anger dawning there. “I trusted even then you would not allow me to fall into the wrong... hands.”

McCoy stared at him, his brain guttering and fizzing like a wet fuse. “When the-- Jim-- you mean-- it wasn't the damn _Venn diagram_ \-- ”

He probably wasn't making any fucking sense, but Spock seemed to understand.

“Yes, Leonard.” Spock set the little shell aside, facing him with calm bravery. “I knew from the first, despite your precautions. I hoped you would choose to come to me.” He lifted one long hand to caress McCoy’s face. “I was not disappointed.”

“That meddling, matchmaking sonofabitch,” McCoy sputtered, but he couldn’t feel as angry as he should, not with that melting look in Spock’s eyes. “I’ll tear him a new one. I’ll fucking _kill_ him.” 

He remembered suddenly how Spock had very nearly broken down the wall to get more… of _him._ Knowing. It sent a shiver of lust down his spine, making his breath catch in his chest.

“You are exaggerating, I trust, given the satisfactory outcome.” Spock clearly perceived his arousal; he reached to curl his powerful fingers behind McCoy’s neck and tugged him down. “I recommend you postpone your vengeance until later.”

 _Yeah,_ McCoy thought vaguely, as Spock’s wicked tongue curled into his ear and his eyes began to glaze. _Not till later. .... **Much** later._


End file.
